How, then, will the baby she carries inside her now seem to me when it is born? Will I be able to cradle the child in one hand? Will there be a genuine danger of my hurting the baby? I'm not so good with my hands these days.
And by the time the baby is big enough, robust enough for me to handle safely, I'll be dead.
Why did I consent to do this?
Oh, yes. Because I love Petra. Because she wants my child so badly. Because Anton had some cock-and-bull story about how all men crave marriage and family even if they don't care about sex.
Now she noticed him, and noticed the balloons, and laughed.
He laughed back and went to her, handed her the balloons.
"Husbands don't usually give their wives balloons," she said.
"I thought having a baby implanted was a special occasion."
"I suppose so," she said, "when it's professionally done. Most babies are implanted at home by amateurs, and the wives don't get balloons."
"I'll remember that and try always to have a few on hand."
He walked beside her as an attendant pushed her wheelchair down the hallway toward the entrance.
"So where is my ticket to?" she asked.
"I got you two," said Bean. "Different airlines, different destinations. Plus this train ticket. If either of the flights gives you a bad feeling, even if you can't decide why you have misgivings, don't get on it. Just go to the other airline. Or leave the airport and take the train. The train ticket is an EU pass so you can go anywhere."
"You spoil me," said Petra.
"What do you think?" asked Bean. "Did the baby hook itself onto the uterine wall?"
"I'm not equipped with an internal camera," said Petra, "and I lack the pertinent nerves to be able to feel microscopically small fetuses implant and start to grow a placenta."
"That's a very poor design," said Bean. "When I'm dead, I'll have a few words with God about that."
Petra winced. "Please don't joke about death."
"Please don't ask me to be somber about it."
"I'm pregnant. Or might be.
I'm supposed to get my way about everything."
The attendant pushing Petra's wheelchair started to take her toward the front cab in a line of three. Bean stopped him.
"The driver's smoking," said Bean.
"He'll put it out," said the attendant.
"My wife will not get into a car with a driver whose clothing is giving off cigarette smoke residue."
Petra looked at him oddly. He raised an eyebrow, hoping she'd realize that this was not about tobacco.
"He's the first taxi in line," said the attendant, as if it were an incontrovertible law of physics that the first cab in line had to be the one to get the next passengers.
Bean looked at the other two cabs. The second driver looked at him impassively. The third driver smiled. He looked Indonesian or Malay, and Bean knew that in their culture, a smile was pure reflex when facing someone bigger or richer than you.
Yet for some reason he did not feel the mistrust about the Indonesian driver that he felt about the two Dutch drivers ahead of him.
So he pushed her wheelchair toward the third cab. Bean asked, and the driver said yes, he was from Jakarta. The attendant, truly irritated at this breach of protocol, insisted on helping Petra into the cab. Bean had her bag and put it in the back seat beside her--he never put anything in the trunks of cabs, in case he had to run for it.